High school administrators in New Hampshire decided to take Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter a little too seriously, separating its vaccinated students from the unvaccinated with a red mark.
Exeter High School decided this month that the only safe way to hold its senior prom was by drawing a big red distinction between students who had received the coronavirus vaccine and those who did not. Unvaccinated students were marked with a black Sharpie on their hands, while those who did show their vaccine cards were given a red mark.
Throughout the event, students were asked to hold up their hands so that their peers could decide whether to dance with them or not, according to one parent. Another parent said administrators left a list of student names with their vaccine information on a table outside of the event for contact tracing purposes.
High schools being absurd is nothing new, and so, this was a fitting COVID-era absurdity. Teenagers were only just approved for vaccination, and even though multiple trials have confirmed that the coronavirus vaccines are both safe and effective, that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve been granted only emergency use authorization. There’s a lot we still don’t know, so it’s hard to blame the parents wary of forcing their young teenagers to get the shot, especially since they’re not at much risk of falling seriously ill from COVID-19 anyway.
Many of Exeter’s parents are understandably upset with the school, which did not inform parents about the procedure beforehand, said state Rep. Melissa Litchfield.
“Marking them, thus singling them out, and then having to raise their hands is beyond tolerable,” one resident told Litchfield.
However, if the school’s forced exclusion is parents’ biggest prom complaint, they’re doing pretty well. Usually, parents have to worry about the rambunctious afterparties that get their children into trouble. But who knows — maybe those were separated by vaccination status too.
